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What Type of Star Is Beta Aquarii?

Beta Aquarii is a G0Ib star in the constellation Aquarius. It's about 600 light years from Earth. Like many other stars it's other name, Sadalsuud, is Arabic. The name means "luck of lucks." Even though it's the beta star it's the brightest star in Aquarius. The alpha star, Sadalmelik, is a little bit less bright. Sadalsuud has an apparent magnitue of 2.90, Sadalmelik has a magnitude of 2.95. The lower a star's magnitude the brighter it is.
  1. Aquarius Star

    • Aquarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac, which means it pretty much follows the ecliptic, which is the path the sun takes around the sky. Sadalsuud is a G star, which means it's yellow like the sun, but the I designation means that it's a supergiant. It's 5,600 degrees Kelvin, which is about as hot as the sun, despite its size. It is 2,200 times as bright as the sun and has about 50 times the diameter and 6 times the mass.The b means it's not as bright as a supergiant star like Deneb, however.

    Main Sequence

    • As a supergiant star Sadalsuud is no longer on the main sequence like the sun is. It's probably fusing helium into carbon and will soon die. Like all stars Sadalsuud began its life when nuclear fusion began in a collapsing cloud of gas and fused hydrogen into helium. That's when it joined the main sequence. In main sequence stars energy from the fusion creates a pressure that pushes outwards and balances the inward force of gravity.

    Old Age

    • When a star gets older like Sadalsuud what happens to it depends on how massive it is. When Sadalsuud started using up the hydrogen in its interior and couldn't fuse hydrogen into helium it couldn't fight off gravity. The interior began to shrink. But during this shrinkage energy was released and the outer layers were pushed out. The outer layers became large and cool. But since Sadalsuud was so much more massive than the sun it expanded even further until it became a supergiant. Usually it would be red and cooler than it is, but Sadalsuud is unusual because it is a yellow supergiant.

    White Dwarf?

    • Sadalsuud might be releasing some of its top layers into space, which would form a planetary nebula and bare the inner layers of the star. These would be blue because they're extremely hot. After about 50,000 years the planetary nebula would drift away into space and the central star that's all that's left of Sadalsuud would contract till it's about the size of the Earth. If its mass is less than 1.4 times the mass of the Earth it will stay that way indefinitely, as a white dwarf. As a triple star system it will be interesting to see how the stars in Sadalsuud's system interact then.

    Supernova?

    • Or, since it's so very massive, one day Sadalsuud might blow up and become a supernova. That means it will explode. A supernova would destroy the star completely. All elements heavier than iron will form because of the high temperature and they would be spewed out into space. Earth's solar system probably formed from the remnants of a supernova.


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